Sponsor: Brooklyn General Store was created in 2002 and is owned and operated by Catherine Clark. Tucked away on a sweet block West of the Carroll Gardens and Cobble Hill neighborhoods, Brooklyn General Store is the enchanting fiber and textile emporium we all dream of. Dreams full of wooly goodness, yards and yards of fabric, felt, dyes, patterns, tools, and handmade gifts. A little old and a little new…a classic general store for the maker who loves to make their own everything. With a charming studio, the shop hosts a variety of wonderful classes taught by special folks including Cal Patch, Nguyen Le, Heather Love and many more. With it’s floor to ceiling shelves, old rolling ladders, and old wood floors, it feels as though you’ve stepped into a wooly wonderland…I so wish I lived closer and could adopt this shop as my own lys, but thankfully they have an online shop filled to the brim with all of their fiber and sewing goods and gifts. So if you’re in the Brooklyn area or just passing through, visit Brooklyn General Store in person and find them online at brooklyngeneral.com

Fiber folk: We’re all very familiar with the wool in the fiber arts, but something that’s far less known is it’s use in building materials, including insulation. What’s extra neat about wool insulation is that it often times uses wool that would be of little or no value in the yarn world and therefore making the best use out of this fiber we love so much. Thayne Mackey and his family are doing something pretty wonderful at Montana Green Insulation and I’m excited for you to hear more. You can find Thayne at montanagreeninsulation.com and on Facebook as Brookside Woolen Mill.

Sponsor: Montana Green Insulation is located in Malta, Montana and is a family run operation, by today’s guest Thayne Mackey, his wife and two children. In 2009 Thayne and his family downsized their farm and started Brookside Woolen Mill where they create their wool insulation product. They run an organic wool processing operation, with high efficiency heating systems, solar water heaters, recycling and settling ponds for waste water, bio-degradable soaps and eco-friendly disposal systems for the vegetable wastes produced by sheep. Their woolen products include Montana Green Sheep Wool Insulation, Reclamation and Revegetation Mats, and Bio-wix wattles and booms for petroleum spills on land and in water. We’re using the wool insulation for our yurt platform and decided to do so because of the incredible properties of wool insulation and it’s R-value. I hope you’ll consider learning more about wool insulation and using it for your next building project. Find Montana Green Insulation at montanagreeninsulation.com.

Update: As many of you know, we recently moved from San Francisco to our ranch in North Idaho where we’re in the final stages of building our yurt home. Over the past couple of years we’ve been doing a lot of research on what materials we wanted to use for various parts of the process, specifically insulation. Because of our northern climate, extra insulation is a must. There are lots of insulation options, but of course our heart was set on using wool insulation after learning more about it’s obvious benefits and R-Value. After reaching out and learning about Thayne Mackey’s operation at Montana Green Insulation we decided on 500lbs of loose fill insulation which we’ll be using in our platform flooring. The delivery is set to arrive early next week and we’ll be posting lots of photos and info on this process as it’s new to us and there really isn’t a whole lot of information out there on on installation. So stay tuned, we’re super excited to get our floor insulated and move in!

This week’s giveaway is sponsored by Taproot Magazine and Boho Chic Fiber Co and they’re giving away the most recent issue of Taproot, Shelter and two gorgeous skeins of handspun Polwarth and Mohair and Silk fingering yarn along with Annie Lupton’s Groh Shawl pattern. To enter this giveaway, leave a comment on today’s episode’s blog post.

I think we must be on the same page. Just last week I found wool insulation rolls from Black Mountain USA, which would take the place of mineral wool insulation (vs. blown cellulose, which is what loose wool replaces). I’ve sent off for quotes for our tiny house build because I would love to have a house full of wool — and not just my yarn stash. Anyway, so glad to hear about another wool insulation company and I’m looking forward to reading about your flooring process!

I’m new to your podcast and I really enjoyed this week’s episode. I had no idea that people were using wool as insulation and it really makes a lot of sense. Thanks so much! Can’t wait for the next episode

I’m a fairly new listener and have so been enjoying it! This episode was particularly interesting…I had aspirations of building at one point and never even considered wool as insulation. Incredible! (And I second the other comments…looking forward to yurt updates!)

I loved this story! Is amazing that the wife (she must really be a wonderful woman) started knitting and then they started the whole thing with sheep, mill and the insulating process machinery. Very inspiring. Please let us know about your experience with the insulated floor!

Great episode! My daughter has a project in Business Studies in High School and we listened to the podcast together and discussed the topic. Very interesting! Thank you as always for the nice giveaway.
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So fortunate to spend this summer/fall processing fleece from a friends farm in Montana! Tunis. LOVE it. Coming up on the 2nd anniversary of buying a Schacht Ladybug sight unseen and teaching myself to spin. I never knew I wanted to be a spinner. Now I can’t imagine not. (It was lovely to knit with as well!)

I found your podcast a few weeks ago based on a recommendation from Kate of A Playful Day. I listened to this week’s episode this morning on my commute, and am so happy I did! My husband and I are starting a renovation project that involves replacing the insulation in the attic of our Connecticut home, and are completely intrigued by the idea of using wool insulation. We’ve asked our contractor to review Thayne’s product to see if it can work for our space. I never would have dreamed that this was “a thing” without the in-depth interview on Woolful.

Thanks for sharing such delightful insight from a new-to-me aspect of the fiber industry.

I loved this episode and am so encouraged by the discussion of the redevelopment of the wool industry in the U.S. We don’t need insulation at present, but I am in the market for a new mattress and was reminded of your earlier posts on shopping for a wool one. Will have to revisit those! Thanks!

my local postmaster and I were discussing the wool insulation industry – he sells from his meat flocks to a local contractor for insulation, another very local mill also acts as a warehouse for the wool-insulation industry. I can sell my flocks’ fiber, reduced price obviously, to her and she sells it to the contractors. It’s great to think of the many uses for the many things we raise, especially fiber. So excited for your insulation! Can’t wait to hear how it all goes. Thanks for the every-informative and well-prepared podcasts. You’re doing an amazing job!

I think I might have to listen to this episode a few times, wool as insulation was not a foreign concept but I had never really thought more about the how and why of it. Also wool stopping bullets, never would have ever imagined that!

I live in Switzerland now and I know they do nothing with the fleece here, sad. We also rent an apt that has a bit of a mold issue and wish that we could insulate with wool, perhaps whenever we have our own house. Thank you

Listened to my first podcast and loved it! Great information on the Montana Green Insulation! My husband is self-employed in construction and this will give be shared information. Learned so much on this podcast. Oh, and FYI, my son just activated in the military and is in Idaho as well now. We are in the Northeast so your world is so new to us. We plan to visit!

Wow!! Taproot, handspun and a gorgeous cozy shawl pattern. Does it get any better than that? Thank you for your wonderful podcast. I am intrigued by the wool insulation and will be looking into in when we reinsulate our basement, which had suffered a major flood just before I bought the house.

I really enjoyed learning more about wool and it’s R value and other uses. Love how none has to go to waste! I am a big fan of the Tiny House movement, so it was neat to hear that touched upon and how the mill was adjusting their products to fit these new needs!

I’ve just started listening to your lovely podcast, and I’m working my way through in order (cos that’s how I roll!), found out about it from knit fm. It’s cool to just finish listening to the episode about moeke yarn where Ioana talked about wanting to make Romanian merino yarn, and Lo and Behold, you have some in your shop and last weeks give away! Awesome! I also love the look of her other yarns, and her naturally dyed colours.

Brilliant! My husband and I have going through the process of designing & (hopefully this spring!) building our first home. It’s a passive heating design and we wanted wool insulation (of course!) but there didn’t seem to be somewhere we could get it from. Glad to see this couple is moving forward on that; hopefully it will start to catch on in Canada too! Goodluck to the Mackey’s – this is just brilliant!

This is fascinating stuff. We have a small (couple dozen) sheep here in NoFla. Always looking out for innovations using wool. My husband is a wood guy, too…involved in an insulation project right now, as a matter of fact. Too bad, dang, just too bad I’m listening to this today and not 6 weeks ago!!!! HA! Great blog. As usual. This time, I was compelled to say, “Hey!”

[…] Sponsor: Montana Green Insulation is located in Malta, Montana and is a family run operation, by Thayne Mackey, his wife and two children. In 2009 Thayne and his family downsized their farm and started Brookside Woolen Mill where they create their wool insulation product. They run an organic wool processing operation, with high efficiency heating systems, solar water heaters, recycling and settling ponds for waste water, bio-degradable soaps and eco-friendly disposal systems for the vegetable wastes produced by sheep. Their woolen products include Montana Green Sheep Wool Insulation, Reclamation and Revegetation Mats, and Bio-wix wattles and booms for petroleum spills on land and in water. We used the wool insulation for our yurt platform and decided to do so because of the incredible properties of wool insulation and it’s R-value. I hope you’ll consider learning more about wool insulation and using it for your next building project. Find Montana Green Insulation at montanagreeninsulation.com and listen to Thayne’s fiber journey in episode 43. […]

Wondering how the wool insulation in the floor of the yurt went? I just ordered a 30′ yurt, and am considering doing the same. Any info you could offer on your system and how you like it would be great!

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